


...And Counting

by bachelorgirl



Category: High School Musical
Genre: M/M, post-HSM3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-08
Updated: 2009-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 20:08:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bachelorgirl/pseuds/bachelorgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College!Ryan kidnaps College!Chad from the frat house and they go on vacation. Not a sequel to the other stories I've written, but they all kinda follow the same canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	...And Counting

"So. You're playing hooky from your classes today. And, you're going to need a bag with clothes for a few days and a toothbrush. And your IDs. The real stuff and the fake ones." Chad's was amazed his boyfriend's voice could sound that authoritative at this time of the day.

Chad tried to clumsily keep hold of his cell phone and winced when it fell to the floor with a dull thud. Still tangled up in his blankets, he tried to reach for it and ended up rolling out of bed, bundled in his blankets, and landing on the floor with a loud thump.

"Ryan?" Chad asked, voice scratchy, when he'd managed to grab onto his phone. "It's still the middle of the night."

"Did you just fall out of bed?" Ryan asked with a laugh. "And, it is not the middle of the night. It's 8am."

"Like I said. Middle of the night. You're two hours ahead of me on a good day and I think I only got to sleep 2 hours ago and I might still be drunk." Chad tried experimentally to stand. "Yup," he said, pressing the heel of his hand into his temple when he felt a sharp, stabbing pain. "Still drunk."

He fell back against his bed and rested his head on his knees and pulled the blankets in around him.

"What were you saying?" Chad asked, trying to focus, concentrating on making his vowels distinct from his consonants.

"You. Hooky. Pack a suitcase." Ryan still sounded amused. The bastard.

"Huh?" Chad rubbed his face. Parts of it were tingling.

"It's a good thing you've already had lots of opportunities to make a good impression in the past, Chad. Because you're not exactly winning me over with your wit this morning."

"Yeah, but you still think I'm fucking hot, even when I'm hung over, so screw you and your perfect grammar," Chad replied. Actually, he was pretty sure he looked like he'd been punched in the face a couple of times but Ryan didn't need to know that. Chad could hear his words begin to slur together again and he could feel himself dangerously close to falling back asleep.

"Oh, no you don't, Danforth. This is no time for sleeping." Ryan's voice was very chipper. Ryan obviously didn't live in a frat house with 22 other guys who had hosted an "Early Easter Sunny Sunday Beach Bash" last night for their sister sorority and what seemed like every other fraternity and sorority on campus. "Also, although I do always think you're "fucking hot", as you say, today's look is most definitely not your finest."

Chad looked down at the navy and white duvet that he was cocooned into and glared into the phone indignantly. "Shut up. I'm warm and comfortable and just because my blanket's not pastel like the baby blue disaster in your dorm room doesn't mean... wait. What?"

There was a knock from the doorway and he saw Ryan leaning against the doorframe, looking impeccable, And slightly slutty, in a pair of very strategically ripped jeans and a pale green t-shirt that was just a little too tight and that appeared to have pictures of Jesus and Elvis on it. Chad shook his head in an attempt to clear it. He was definitely seeing things. Like Elvis. And his boyfriend. Not necessarily in that order.

"Huh?" Chad said, unblinking. He pushed himself up off of the floor with only minimal stumbling. The blanket fell to the ground and he just stood there, staring blankly at Ryan. Ryan wasn't supposed to be there, in Chad's room. Or even in the same state. And, Chad was still pretty sure that he was still pretty drunk and this whole situation was making his head hurt. More than it had 5 minutes before.

"Okay, nevermind. I take that back. That is definitely one of your finest looks." Ryan said, looking him up and down now that the blanket had fallen away. Chad was half-naked, wearing only the pair of jeans he fell into bed wearing after the party.

Chad spun in a slow circle as if he were modeling haute couture (he blames Ryan for even knowing the existence of that phrase, let alone the fact that he can now properly pronounce it, spell it, and use it correctly in a sentence) on a runway and then fell back onto his bed as a wave of nausea hit him.

"What was that?" Ryan asked, pointing at Chad's shoulder.

"What's what?" Chad craned his neck and when he couldn't get a good view of his shoulder, he looked in the mirror. When he saw the elaborate black design with some string of characters in the middle drawn on his right shoulder blade in black sharpie, he laughed.

"That would be Holly. She's one of the sisters at KKG. She's minoring in Russian."

"Please tell me that she didn't write "kick me" on your back."

"Um. I believe that, in spite of the 147 letters on my shoulder, I think that all it allegedly says is 'Gay' Or, possibly 'very very gay'. But, Holly could have been exaggerating." Chad closed his eyes and threw his arm over his eyes and waited for the room to stop spinning. It was really, really unfair that his completely awesome and totally hot and fully in the same room as him boyfriend was standing right there and Chad was overcome with a wave of nausea.

"If I could stand, I would be molesting you. FYI. Because you're looking particularly hot right now and I haven't seen you in 46 days." Chad stopped when he heard Ryan rustling around his room. "What are you doing?"

"Packing. We're on a schedule here." Chad could hear Ryan's smile.

"You're packing those awful jeans you bought for me the last time you were here, aren't you?" Chad was having visions of being dressed up in distressed Dolce and Gabanna. With rhinestones on his ass.

"Yup. And, that shirt I love. Pretty much your entire wardrobe is coming out of the drawer that never gets opened, except by me when I'm in town. And, since you're incapacitated, you're just going to have to go with the flow. Trust me. I'm having enough fun for the both of us."

It seemed like an hour later when Chad felt Ryan gently lie down next to him. Chad smiled to himself and rolled over and pressed his head into Ryan's shoulder. Ryan who was here. In his room. And who smelled like Chad's favourite cologne that he always wore when Chad was around. Unless he had just stepped out of the shower, when he smelled like the sandalwood body wash that he always used, or right after dance practice, when he smelled like sweat and sandalwood and spearmint gum and Chad wanted to push the both of them into the shower and they could both stumble out smelling like sandalwood.

"Do we have to go?" Chad asked, wrapping his arm around Ryan's waist. "We could just stay here, huh?"

"It's only for a couple of days. But, if you really don't want to go, we don't have to. But, I think that you might enjoy yourself," Ryan replied, hooking his leg around Chad's.

"Yeah. That's a very persuasive argument you're making there, buddy. Now I totally want to get up," Chad said, tipping his head back and letting Ryan suck what was sure to be a dark purple bruise on the underside of his jaw.

Ryan bit the reddened skin lightly and then pushed himself up and tugged lightly on Chad's arm. "Come on."

"Ryan..." Chad concentrated on not falling over as he was lead by Ryan down the hall and into the bathroom.

"Have a shower. I'll finish packing and grab you something greasy to eat and some happy pills, okay?"

Chad grinned and nodded as he pulled Ryan close for another bone crushing hug. Because he could.

* ~ * ~

Halfway through his shower, when his head began to clear, Chad realized that he'd been humming to himself and grinned like an idiot as he washed the shampoo out of his hair. His boyfriend was not across the country. He was in his room. He was probably in his _bed_. Waiting for him. Chad scrubbed his hands through his hair faster.

When he was satisfied that he smelled and looked human again, he started moving so quickly that he practically fell out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist and brushing his teeth hard with one hand while he shaved with the other.

He walked back to his room, stopped three separate times by three separate frat brothers who poked fun at him for the fact that Ryan was in town. The same good-natured teasing that all of his frat brothers gave each other whenever a visiting girlfriend (or, in Chad's case, boyfriend) infiltrated the house.

Chad wandered back to his room and grinned at Ryan, who was sitting on Chad's bed, leaning back against the headboard flipping through the copy of _Men's Health_ that Chad had stolen from Eric a couple of weeks ago and hadn't gotten around to returning.

"This is the gayest magazine ever," Ryan said, flipping the page without looking up.

Chad laughed. "You think everything is gay. I stole it from Eric, like, a month ago. I'm not sure he'd agree with you."

Ryan flipped the magazine up so Chad could see it. "Eliminate Your Worst Offensive Odors. With blond, shirtless eyecandy." He flipped the page, "The Best Products for Great Skin. With more blond, shirtless eyecandy. Best Chores for Burning Calories. More eyecandy. And Sculpt an Instant Beach Body. With, oh look, more eyecandy. Brunet this time. Seriously. There are no women in any of these pictures and no one is wearing a shirt. _The Advocate_ wishes it was this gay."

Chad laughed. It was a very reasonable point. "I beg you. Please tell Eric all of this. Please."

Ryan laughed and threw the magazine at Chad, who ducked and it barely missed his head. Chad grinned over at Ryan and launched himself at the bed, landing with a bounce at Ryan's feet. Grinning, he crawled up the bed and kneeled on Ryan's lap, straddling his thighs.

"But I just got here," Ryan said with a faux-pout. "You're already trying to pawn me off on your frat brothers? Why? Do you think Eric might be interested? He's the one who is like 16 feet tall with the brown hair, right? He's cute."

Chad didn't respond to Ryan's baiting. He just leaned forward and kissed the hell out of him. Forty-six days was a long fucking time and he had no idea why his boyfriend had just shown up on his doorstep, but here he was and Chad wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He had no idea what that expression actually meant, but if not doing it meant that it was going to keep his very hot boyfriend in his bed, he was going to be extra careful not to do it. Or anything that could accidentally be mistaken for it.

He was working on undoing the buckle on Ryan's ridiculously complicated belt when he felt Ryan push him away. "We're going to be late," Ryan said, shoving lightly at Chad in an effort to get him to move.

"We're almost at the good part, what are you doing?" Chad asked. He was whining. He knew he was whining. But, goddammit his boyfriend was not nearly naked enough.

Ryan pushed himself up off of the bed and held his hands out to Chad. Chad rolled his eyes and only pouted a little as he let himself be pulled off of the bed. Ryan handed him a glass of water and a couple of Aleve and Dramamine and said, "Come on. The best part is coming up."

Swallowing the pills, Chad looked at Ryan warily. "You do realize that if you are talking about going to meet your sister, I may have to break up with you right now, don't you?" Chad was almost slightly horrified.

"I wasn't talking about Sharpay, loser. She doesn't even know I'm in town, now let's go. The car is downstairs waiting." Ryan slung Chad's bag over his shoulder and headed for the door. Chad reached out and grabbed his hand, dragging Ryan to a dead halt.

"You didn't tell Sharpay that you flew in from New York?" Chad gaped, as the reality of the situation dawned on him. "She's going to KILL ME WHEN SHE FINDS OUT." Chad just stared dumbly at Ryan.

Ryan burst out laughing. "I'll take care of it," he replied.

Chad couldn't believe that Ryan could still underestimate Sharpay. "You know that I'm going to be the one that has to deal with this when you go back to New York and I'm still here in Albuquerque and, like I said. She's going to kill me. Dead." Chad threw his hands up in exasperation.

"It'll be fine. Now come on. Move it or lose it."

Chad rolled his eyes. "You realize that you're asking me to just follow you and assume that I'm going to. Even though I don't know where we're going. Only that we appear to be going somewhere that is not my bedroom."

"Pretty much," Ryan replied, holding out his hand for Chad to hold, for real this time, and smiled when Chad took it. Chad was always going to. Because, really, being anywhere with Ryan even if Sharpay was there was still better than being in his frat house by himself, without Ryan. Which is pretty much how he was most of the time.

He let Ryan lead him down the stairs and only stopped him 4 times to make out with him in the hallway and Ryan only had to remove Chad's hands from underneath his shirt twice, so Chad was, all things considered, proud of his restraint.

* ~ * ~

They had a layover in Atlanta.

Not that he did a lot of flying, but when he did, Chad hated the airport. It was busy and loud and boring except for the food vendors and he couldn't wait to just get on the plane and go wherever he was flying to. He'd never had a layover before, but he'd always imagined he'd hate sitting around in an airport, just waiting to get where he was going.

Of course, when he'd imagined this scenario in his head, he had never really considered that he would be huddled in the corner booth of the first class lounge, with his boyfriend settled in between his legs, leaning back against his chest after the two of them updated each other's Facebook statuses on Chad's iPhone, had taken pictures of themselves with the African stone statues that were all over the airport and uploaded them to Chad's Facebook profile page, and then left inappropriate comments on their friend's walls. After their plane from Albuquerque had landed, they had scoured the waiting areas in their terminal and had found a couple of business class boarding pass receipts left next to a couple of discarded Starbucks cups and had used them to bypass the cranky airport employee who was acting like she was guarding the tower of London and grab some places on a big, cushy sofa in the first class lounge.

This was, of course, after they had stopped to read every trashy tabloid magazine in the gift shop, buy an adaptor to charge Ryan's iPod while they were waiting, and buy very oversized hooded sweatshirts and sunglasses. After which, they put on the newly-acquired articles of clothing and proceeded to slink around the airport acting all self-conscious and important, pretending that they were celebrities and they were trying to stay incognito. The whispers and half-hidden pointed gestures made both of them crack up with laughter afterwards as they settled on the sofa and shared a can of Pepsi that only made Chad's stomach a little queasy.

Ryan had a script from one of his acting classes that he was randomly highlighting passages in and murmuring quietly under his breath, and Chad was reading some guy who hid out on a boat in a coffin and is obsessed with Harry Houdini and comic books on Ryan's e-Reader. Ryan had ordered himself lunch, since he'd 'gotten up a billion hours ago to fly from New York to Albuquerque and I want a fucking chicken caesar salad, jackass' while Chad just worked on keeping his nausea in check, taking two more Dramamine with the least amount of water necessary to swallow the pills down.

It was actually a lot of fun. Chad actually looked at his watch in surprise when Ryan nudged him and pointed out that the boarding announcement for their next flight was being broadcast over the loudspeaker.

* ~ * ~

"You do know that the only thing I know about New Orleans, other than Hurricane Katrina, is that you can carry your booze around in public, right?" Chad replied, stepping off the plane.

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Ryan's eyeroll was good natured. "Why do you think we're here?"

Chad stopped and stared at Ryan. "Huh?"

"You didn't really think that we came here to see the sights, did you?" Ryan grinned wickedly at Chad.

"I. Um." Chad paused, and then tried for honesty. "I hadn't really thought about it until just now."

"What? You were so overwhelmed by my fabulousness that you couldn't think straight?"

"More like the fact that your fabulous ass was in my bedroom, telling me that we were going somewhere. Together. Since I hadn't seen you in 46 days, I didn't really focus on the destination." He figured that sticking with the honesty right now was probably a good idea.

He was rewarded when the tips of Ryan's ears flushed bright pink. He looked like he was going to ask another question when he clamped his jaw shut. And pointed at Chad. "You have a calendar, don't you?"

"I do not." It was the truth. Sort of.

"You do! You are so the girl. And you mark down how many days it's been since we've seen each other!"

"I do not. I just have a very good memory."

Ryan raised an eyebrow.

"And a house full of frat brothers who like to remind me just how long it's been since I've gotten laid." Chad looked at the floor. "And, they may or may not have a calendar on the wall in the basement."

Ryan gaped at him. "You guys are completely fucked up, you know that, right?"

"I mope. They mock. It's what we do. There's a calendar dedicated to how many days in a row Rob can go without eating someone else's leftovers for breakfast and who has the highest score on Mario 3 on Justin's old-school Nintendo and how many days Danny can leave his dirty dishes in the sink without either putting them in the dishwasher, actually washing them by hand, or throwing them in the trash."

"Seriously. Completely fucked up."

"Pretty much," Chad agreed, sliding his arm around Ryan's waist and pulling Ryan against his side.

* ~ * ~

"Okay. I'm hungry," Chad announced as they piled their stuff into a heap in the middle of the bed in their hotel room. Ryan rolled his eyes and tossed a throw pillow at Chad's head.

"Of course you are. You couldn't have eaten before we left home, could you?"

Chad stuck his tongue out at Ryan. "We left home 10 hours ago and I was so hung over that I nearly puked on your shoes. Twice. If I had eaten, you would have been walking barefoot out of the airport. That wouldn't have been good for either of us. You, particularly. Because airports are totally gross. But, me, because I would have had to explain why I was hanging out with a homeless person who wasn't wearing any shoes."

Ryan flopped onto the bed and reached over and grabbed Chad by his belt loops and hauled him down onto the bed. "Well, I got on a plane in Queens last night, had a layover in Atlanta, got into Albuquerque this morning, got back on a plane, had another layover in Atlanta and then got on a plane and ended up in New Orleans. I think all that effort at least earns me the right to steal your shoes."

"You did what?" Chad just stared at Ryan.

Ryan clapped his hand over his mouth. "You know, I hadn't actually meant to tell you that."

"Yesterday, when I was talking to you before the party, you were in an AIRPORT?"

Ryan nodded.

"You've been up for a day?"

Ryan blushed a florescent shade of red and nodded again.

"Have I told you lately how awesome you are?"

Ryan shook his head. "But, since I'm here, you could maybe just skip the talking and show me."

Chad grinned. "Twice." And laughed a little at the expression that came over Ryan's face. "But, first, I think that I need some food. And, you probably do too. And, then a shower and a nap."

"You don't want to..." Ryan made a vague gesture towards the door and the window that Chad figured roughly translated into 'go outside and partake in the debauchery'.

"Oh, I really, really do. But, first I need to eat and now that you're lying down, you look like you might cry if someone makes you get up again. And, besides. Hanging out with you in a very expensive hotel room with no frat brothers or high-maintenance sisters or anyone around that we know who can bother us in the same time zone as us? Doesn't really sound like as much of a consolation prize as it does like I won the damn lottery." Chad slid his hand around Ryan's back and up under his shirt.

"You cool with that?" Chad asked, tracing patterns on Ryan's lower back.

"That's a word for it," Ryan replied, hooking his leg around Chad's thighs and pulling him closer.

Chad laughed and kissed him quickly. "Seriously, dude. Food." It took all of his willpower to push himself off Ryan and roll over to reach for the phone on the nightstand.

It was very hard to concentrate on ordering food (enough for an army) and drinks (because they were totally going to bring hurricanes directly _to the hotel room_ ) and dessert (pecan pie and pineapple cheesecake!) with Ryan's hand sliding down the front of his pants. But, somehow, he managed to get the job done, and managed to stumble, half-dressed, to the door to retrieve the food when it arrived.

It started as an accident. It really did. Chad hadn't _meant_ to spill the pink, syrupy liquid as he was crawling back into bed, holding two tall glasses full of pinky-orange drinks. But, when the liquid splashed over the top of the glass and dripped down his arm and down the side of Ryan's face, he just kinda went with it. Chad climbed on top of Ryan, reached over and, as he was placing the second drink on the nightstand, he bent down and licked the spilled drink off Ryan's cheekbone and down the side of his neck. The sound that Ryan made when that happened, well, that was enough to keep Chad interested. Very interested.

"Like that, huh?" Chad whispered into Ryan's ear. "Good to know." He raised himself up and settled back onto Ryan's thighs. He dipped his index finger into the glass and then traced the lines of Ryan's lips, grinning down at him as his lips started to shine. He bent down and kissed the drink from his lips, careful not to tip over the drink in his left hand while sliding his right hand around Ryan's back and pulling him so he was half sitting. He then helped Ryan pull his shirt up over his head and then pulled back and admired the view.

"Clothes are overrated, you know," Chad said as he started to trace sticky patterns on Ryan's shoulders and along his collarbone. "I'm thinking that the rest of the night should be clothing optional," he said, bending down to lick across Ryan's skin.

"Holy fuck, seriously. Are you trying to kill me?" Ryan asked.

"Well, I don't think that that would be in my best interest," Chad said, tipping the glass and pouring a small amount of the drink onto Ryan's skin. "Maybe I should stop."

Ryan hissed as the cold liquid pooled on his stomach and he made a clumsy attempt at trying to pull Chad's t-shirt off as Chad kissed his way down Ryan's chest. Chad eventually took pity on him and sat up, pulling his t-shirt off with one hand.

"See, now," Ryan said, reaching for the glass in Chad's hand. "I don't think that stopping right now would be in your best interest, either." He took the glass from Chad and forced himself into a sitting position.

Ryan had that look in his eye. The one that said that he was up to no good and, as a result, things were about to get very, very, good for Chad very, very soon.

Ryan placed his hand in the middle of Chad's chest and gently pushed him backwards. Chad fell back willingly, letting his back rest against the bed, between Ryan's legs.

"You have something else in mind, then?" Chad asked. He was going for teasing. But, he was fairly certain it almost sounded like a request. Because his boyfriend was fucking hot and covered in a sticky mess of alcohol and fruit juice and was currently straddling him in the middle of a gigantic bed. In a hotel room. Where they were very, very alone. And, seriously. He was easy when it came to Ryan on a good day. Right now, he was pretty sure that he'd do whatever it was that Ryan had in mind. He just hoped that it wasn't going to involve him sleeping for the foreseeable future. And that nudity was heavily featured.

Ryan nodded as he settled himself comfortably on Chad's stomach. He reached his hands into the glass and pulled out the ice cubes floating at the top and let them drop noisily into the garbage can that was on the floor next to the bed. He tipped the glass very slightly and let a small amount of drink drip out of the glass and onto Chad's lips. Chad smiled and opened his mouth and let the drink fill his mouth. He swallowed easily and looked back up at Ryan, expecting a repeat performance and saw that Ryan was taking a mouthful of the drink himself. He put the glass down beside the bed and, when both of his hands were free, placed a hand on each side of Chad's head on the bed and bent down, so his face was barely a hair's width away from his own.

"All done?" Chad asked, his voice thick in his ears.

Ryan shook his head slowly and kissed Chad, closed-lipped. When Chad opened his mouth below Ryan's, he was surprised to be met with a mouthful of the sweet, syrupy drink. Chad kissed him back eagerly and wrapped his arms tightly around Ryan, pulling him down on top of him.

Ryan came willingly and slid his hands around Chad's back and down under the waistband at the back of his jeans. "Not even close. We're just getting started."

* ~ * ~

When he woke up the next morning, he could feel his limbs tangled with Ryan's in a mess of blankets and sheets and pillows that were strewn haphazardly around the bed. The room service cart was still beside the door, all of the food untouched and probably growing all kinds of interesting bacteria. His skin was sticky and his mouth felt like cotton and he was sure that the room probably smelled so much like sex that the smell had traveled down the hall, but he was pretty damned pleased with himself. The sun was peeking in through a slit in the curtains and Chad just lay there, his fingers tangled in Ryan's hair and watched the dust particles move around in the light beam.

He was contemplating getting out of bed and seeing what the world looked like behind the curtains when he felt Ryan's arms tighten around him and heard him mumble something into the skin of his shoulder.

"What was that?" Chad asked, with a slight laugh.

"Don't even think about getting up," was Ryan's reply.

"Isn't there stuff we were supposed to be doing today?" Chad asked.

"There are lots of things to do today." Ryan said. "Not all of them are out there, though." Ryan punctuated this statement by sliding his hand down Chad's chest and swirling a finger around his navel.

Chad smiled and let himself be pushed over onto his back again as Ryan climbed on top of him, wrapping his hands around Chad's wrists and pinning them to the pillow above Chad's head.

"You know, I'm pretty sure that we could have done this in one of our own states. I think we are failing at Mardi Gras," Chad said, not with any conviction in his voice whatsoever.

Ryan shrugged. "We'll try again later."

* ~ * ~

"Do we really have to leave the hotel room?" Chad asked as he dug through this duffle bag for a pair of jeans that did not contain some form of rhinestone or embroidery. He knew, since Ryan had packed his bag, that it was a futile effort, but he had to give it a shot.

Ryan nodded. "Besides, it will be worth your while," he promised as he pulled a tight black t-shirt over his head and rooting around in his luggage for a few seconds before pulling out a black and white striped vest.

"I don't know. I'm feeling pretty worthwhile right now." Chad buried himself back into the bed, letting his shower-wet hair drip onto the pile of pillows.

"Get out of bed, dude." Ryan batted at his foot playfully, before wrapping his hand around Chad's ankle and pulling him down the bed. As he pulled, Chad could feel the towel slipping off of his waist.

"If you wanted me naked again, you only had to ask," Chad replied, not stopping to fix the towel which was dangerously low on his hips.

"Later," Ryan replied, tossing the clothes that Chad had pulled out of his bag at him.

Chad grumbled to himself as he rolled off the bed and started getting dressed. "So, we got to stay in bed when _you_ wanted to this morning, but now that I want to stay here, you're suddenly eager to see the sights?" Chad asked, jokingly.

Ryan rolled his eyes and kissed Chad quickly. "Fine. Feel free to stay. I'm going to go out and wander the streets drinking alcoholic beverages and ogle all of the pretty people and maybe get naked for some beads. Feel free to stay here."

Ryan had barely finished saying the word "naked" before Chad was scrambling to get dressed and had tangled himself up in the jeans that he had been in the process of pulling on.

* ~ * ~

Mardi Gras _Carnival_ , Chad mentally corrected himself was probably the perfect holiday for them to make an effort at, really. There was lots of alcohol for Chad, to release his and everyone else's inhibitions. Lots of glitter and masks and costumes for Ryan. And lots of naked people for the enjoyment of everyone. It was better than Christmas.

Except with more groping. Chad calculated that he was averaging one ass-grab every 5 minutes. Ryan was no help. Instead of nobly defending his honour, he pretty much just stood by and laughed.

There was colour everywhere. Costumes on the parade routes, masks on the pedestrians, glittery beads flying the air from all directions, and more body and face paint than Chad thought was humanly possible to exist at one time. And people, including Ryan, seemed obsessed with randomly painting shapes all over chest. He still wasn't entirely sure what had happened to his shirt after he'd spilled a pile of gooey sugary bananas all over it earlier.

And, Ryan. Chad was pretty sure he was going to fill up all of the available memory on his iPhone with pictures of Ryan. Ryan wearing strands and strands of sparkly beads that he didn't seem to need to even get naked for people to throw at him. Ryan posing with each of the 5 drinks he'd had so far. And Ryan in all of the various stages of having his face painted. It had started out with a layer of pink from the corner of his eye and fanned out towards his hairline. Metallic pink and dark purple added on top of that, outlined in black and painted over with black swirls and dots and stars, finished off with light blue spots sprinkled with gold glitter. He was still turning down offers on random street corners to have his other cheek painted. Ryan kept refusing, but Chad couldn't blame them for trying. They had eyes. His boyfriend was fucking gorgeous. Chad was pretty sure the blue and gold mask that he'd been given by a six-foot tall drag queen on a corner early on in the day looked pretty dull in comparison.

The sounds of music filtered out from each of the bars and clubs that they passed and the air was thick with smoke and heat and alcohol. All of which were flowing liberally. Chad and Ryan somehow grabbed a road-side spot to watch the parade.

Chad stood behind Ryan and wrapped his arms around his waist and rested his chin on his shoulder. "You're going to have paint all over your clothes, you know." Chad said, kissing the side of his neck.

Ryan just shrugged. "C'est la vie. Let me have the drink." He took the drink from Chad's hand and took a sip. "You know, I think my liver is pickled by now."

Chad grinned at Ryan and blushed one of the parade marchers stopped in front of the two of them. A tall girl wearing a sparkly red and white dress-type thing and with bright metallic blue angel wings, nearly as tall as she was, stopped and placed a strand of metallic blue beads around Ryan's neck and handed Chad a small, purple and white pointy flower. "Mes chers amis," she said, with a little bow, before spinning herself in a circle and joining back in with the rest of the parade.

"Was she hitting on you?" Chad asked and Ryan didn't have to turn around for Chad to know that he was rolling his eyes.

"I think we need more drinks. And food," Ryan said, starting to make his way through the crowd, away from the parade.

"You know, I don't think you've stood still for longer than a minute all day," Chad said, following behind.

"Places to see, people to do," Ryan replied, grinning back at Chad.

Ryan stopped at a man hanging out in a lawn chair under an awning to buy an over-priced bottle of water. Chad hung back, leaning against the brick building, watching Ryan and also watching a group of people in a window directly above where Ryan was who seemed to be in the middle of orchestrating some sort of Mardi Gras-themed attack on the people on the sidewalk below them.

He saw Ryan twist the top off the water bottle and take a long gulp. He hadn't even had the chance to put the lid back on the bottle before a tall, dark and handsome stranger walked, practically prowling, up to him and slid his arm around Ryan's waist and spun the two of them in a small circle before pulling back to a socially-acceptable distance (at least, during Mardi Gras) for flirting.

Ryan was normally oblivious that he was being hit on and usually spent 5 minutes giving directions or answering a probably rhetorical question before his brain or one of his friends joined into the conversation and brought him up to speed. This, however, was not one of those times. Ryan stood there, flustered and, from his hand motions, was probably trying to gesture to where he thought Chad might be waiting. Chad smiled as he pushed himself off of the wall and went to go put his boyfriend out of his misery.

Chad walked up behind Ryan and slid his arms around his waist, putting the purple flower through the belt loops of his jeans. "Come on, I want another one of those things where they set the cherries on fire," he murmured into Ryan's ear.

Ryan turned around in his arms and wrapped his arms around Chad's neck and he leaned up for a kiss. "Where the fuck were you?"

Chad grinned back against Ryan's mouth. "Waiting for the right moment."

"Oh? And what would that be?"

The words were barely out of Ryan's mouth before a shower of glitter rained down from the sky above them, covering them, everyone around them, and making a pool on the sidewalk that was kicked into the air by each step of the people walking around them down the sidewalk.

* ~ * ~

Chad attempted to blink himself awake and found that his eyelids seemed to be cemented together. He also found, when he attempted to move his head, that his cheek seemed to be embedded into the carpet of his hotel room floor.

"This is not good," Chad muttered without opening his eyes. "I think I might be dead. Am I dead?" Chad grunted loudly when he felt a hand slap against his shoulder and land there with a dull thud.

"Nope," Ryan's voice was thick and slow."My hand didn't pass through. Not dead. I think that's how it works, right? If you were dead I couldn't touch you."

"Fuck." Chad rolled himself over, rolling in the direction that Ryan's arm had come from. "I'm sure there's a good reason why I have carpet imprints in my face."

"I think it had something to do with the bed being all the way over there." Out of the corner of his half-opened eye, Chad saw Ryan gesture blindly, nowhere near the direction of the bed, and winced when he ended up smacking Chad across his face with the back of his hand.

"And, we suck," Chad said, reaching up and grabbing blindly and awkwardly at Ryan's hand, pulling him closer, which was hard since the carpet on the floor created a lot of resistance.

"In the bad way," Ryan agreed. "I think it seemed like a good idea at the time. But, I still have my pants on, so clearly we weren't capable of deciding what was or was not a good idea."

"Most of our best ideas involve no pants," Chad couldn't argue with Ryan's logic in this particular situation. As he closed his eyes and laid his head back down on the carpet, bits and pieces of the night before floated behind his eyes.

Face painting. Losing his shirt. Body painting. The parade. The jazz bar. The other jazz bar. The four bars that came after that one. More drinks than he'd ever consumed in his life. Tall, dark and handsome man who'd tried to pick up his boyfriend. The banana dessert he'd spilled all over himself. The flaming cherries. His blue and gold mask. Making out on so many different city blocks that he'd stopped counting after 12. Getting Ryan's clothes covered in the body paint that had been all over himself. Managing to get Ryan to strip half-naked in public. More making out in the back of a smoky lounge which might, hopefully, explain the ashtray-like taste in his mouth. Which is where the flashback montage ended. When they left the lounge and how they got back to hotel and anything that might have happened between those two events was a total mystery. Chad made a note to try to remember to ask Ryan later.

"It rained glitter, didn't it?" Ryan's voice broke through Chad's inner monologue.

Chad smiled. "It did. Figures that would be the part you remember."

Chad struggled to prop his head up on his elbow and looked down at Ryan, whose facepaint was smudged around the edges, trailing pink into the hair at his temples. There were some faint (and not-so-faint) bruises on his collarbone and dark smudges under his eyes. When he moved to sit up further, Chad noticed some more multi-coloured glitter fall onto Ryan's face and he grinned mischeviously.

"What?" Ryan asked, seeing him through one half-opened eye.

Chad shook his head and a mini-shower of glitter fell from his hair all over Ryan's face and got stuck in his hair and his eyelashes. The sudden movement made him a little dizzy, so he bent forward and rested his cheek on Ryan's shoulder, knowing that it was probably going to be covered in glitter when he eventually sat up. Which he was planning on doing on approximately the 29th of Neverbuary.

He had just started to drift back to sleep with Ryan's hand on his hip, fingers sneaking down the waistband of his jeans when he heard Ryan's cellphone start to loudly blare "It's Raining Men."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Chad tried to ignore it.

"Hey, you're the one that put that song on my phone, loser."

"Yeah, but it's also the 'oh, shit' alarm that we set yesterday before we went out. Which means we slept through my alarm and your first alarm. And the wake-up call."

"Oh, shit." Ryan's voice was scratchy.

"Yes. As in, "oh, shit, if we don't get up now and have a shower, we are going to miss our planes"." Chad struggled into a sitting position, trying to hoist Ryan up with him.

"We dont really have to go back, do we?" Ryan asked, hopeful.

"I'm sure I could blow off my econ seminar, but I'm pretty sure if you don't show up for your Thursday workshop, you're going to be in serious dog poo with the hoity toity folks in the dance department. So, really. This whole thing is your fault."

Ryan pouted at him as Chad pulled them both to their feet. "Shut up."

Chad smiled and kissed him, glitter on his lips and all. "The good parts are your fault, too, jackass. Now, come on. Back to reality."

It took more self-restraint than Chad knew he had to get the two of them past the bed and into the bathroom, but concentrated on the smells and soap and comfort of the hot water and focused on them as a start to the beginning of one more day together, instead of the start of goodbye.

* ~ * ~

Chad pulled his cell phone out of his pocket as soon as he landed on the tarmac and turned it on. There were a couple of voicemail messages from Ryan, who had landed before him. He'd made it back to the city and had made sure to call Sharpay as soon as he landed and let her take out her rage at being left out on him (which, she had) to spare Chad the anger (though, she would probably save some for Chad anyway) and that he was pretty sure he was going to fall asleep before he even made it to his dorm, but that he'd had a great time.

 _Miss you._ A single text message with an accompanying picture of the two of them on the airplane between New Orleans and Atlanta.

As Chad headed through the airport, his bag slung over his shoulder, Ryan's e-Reader in one hand (he'd made Chad take it for his flight back to Albuquerque since Chad hadn't put the thing down during their entire layover before they'd boarded their separate planes back home) and his cell phone in the other, he noticed a couple of small pieces of red glitter sticking out from under the wristband of his watch.

 _Home safe. Miss U 2. Back in Alb._

He waved down a taxi and tried to figure out how he was going to convince his frat brothers that they wanted to pretend this never happened and focus on bugging Jeremy about his new girlfriend instead.

He laughed to himself and resigned himself to the fact that it was impossible and that he might as well just accept defeat and let things go on the way they always did. With that thought, he picked up his phone and fired off one more text message before settling back against the seat for a short nap on the drive home.

 _6 hrs. And counting..._

-END-


End file.
